


In the Dark of the End, I Found a Vision of Light

by RoyalBlue31



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Dad Steve Rogers, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Natasha deserved better, Sarah Rogers Exists, Steve Rogers & James Rogers - Freeform, james rogers exists
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:20:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23184670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoyalBlue31/pseuds/RoyalBlue31
Summary: In the end, Steve is the one to step up to the plate. He snaps his fingers, praying that his little boy and little girl will forgive him. What follows next is one last chance to say goodbye.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 5
Kudos: 63





	In the Dark of the End, I Found a Vision of Light

**Author's Note:**

> Angsty little piece I had to cough up like the proverbial hairball. Currently thinking about making an Endgame story with little James and Sarah as the Rogers' family goes thru everything from the Time Heist to its aftermath.

The first thing Steve could sense was that he was falling.

He couldn’t see or hear, wrapped in eternal darkness and deafening silence all at once. It felt…it felt like he had gone into the ice all over again. 

The thought triggered an unnatural raw panic slowly climbing in his chest. He hadn’t felt this way since he was a scrawny kid. Now, on the other hand, he felt…he felt like he was nothing.

He tried to force himself to consciousness. _Come on, just open your eyes_ , he thought. 

And then suddenly, the falling stopped.

He was perfectly still. He could feel the ground beneath his body. He could feel his body! His legs were tired, sore even - another new sensation he had not felt in a long time. But he still could not open his eyes. 

“You okay, Cap?”

The voice was an unfamiliar echo seemingly coming from all directions at once. Male, young…Steve wracked his brain trying to connect a face to the sound. Too young to be any of the Avengers, but still somewhat older than even Parker. 

Steve clenched his jaw. He could feel water slowly creeping over his legs, triggering another panic in his chest.

“You can open your eyes.”

 _If only it were that simple_ , he thought.

“You’re alright. You can do it.”

Steve turned towards the voice. It sounded less like an echo and more like an actual person now. It’s coming from the right, he decided. He felt himself turning as if suspended in mid-air. And then…light. A tiny spec - waiting for him just out of his reach.

“You did good, dad.”

x x x x 

For what it was worth, Steve could not remember opening his eyes. In a quick second darkness had transformed to a bright orange hue and the world around him shifted. His chest burned painfully. His body felt like it was on fire. Heaving off his back, he bent forward on all fours, struggling to cough through the dryness in his throat.

A hand came to his back, lighting thumping him.

Steve coughed out a little more, before rubbing his arm across his mouth. The hand on his back pulled away, coming out to his front, trying to help him stand. 

He looked up, squinting at a figure enveloped in the orange sun. It was like staring into an eclipse. It hurt his eyes to focus on finding features, so instead he looked back to the hand and took it. The stranger heaved him to his feet with astonishing ease and Steve found himself face to face with - 

“…James.”

There was no denying it. James Rogers retracted his hand sheepishly, drawing it to rub the side of his neck. It was a force of habit that he had learned as a young boy, done in moments of distress. Steve’s heart swelled at the gesture, because James had learned it from him.

 _This isn't right_ , he found himself thinking as his frown deepened. He could feel panic rising in his chest again, because the James he knew was only twelve. _This_ James looked like a grown man, hidden behind a mop of curly red hair, bearing blue eyes burdened by a pain that made him seem way beyond his years. 

James said nothing, observing Steve with - unease? Steve purposefully softened his features. James was waiting for something, was waiting for him...What - and that’s when it hit him. 

His James…his little boy…he had left him behind. 

The thought sent Steve swaying slightly on the spot, his legs almost giving out. The James in this world (universe? timeline?) caught onto him quick, supporting him with his arm. He slowly helped him into a sitting position on the bed of water. Steve found himself unable to breathe. Even sitting on the ground, it felt like the earth was going to split and eat him up. 

“Breathe…” This James said. 

Steve tried to hold up a hand in protest. He tried to stand, but this James ignored him and tugged him down easily. 

“Just breathe with me.” 

This James inhaled pointedly, encouraging Steve to join him. They inhaled and exhaled slowly for a couple of breaths. Steve looked from James to what was ahead of him. _This isn’t right._

Wherever he was, he certainly wasn't Captain America. 

To his front, the water seemed endless. He couldn’t see anything else. Just the orange-purple water and the orange sky. The thought send him crashing further. He clutched onto James' arm, trying to blink away the black spots in his vision. James' voice had gone cloudy and further away. His son clutched him back and gave him a comforting squeeze - the same type of comforting squeeze he often gave James during times of trouble. This James was beckoning him back to the present. Steve tried to ease his breathing and push away the panic of realizing he was dead. He tried his best to focus on the sound of James' voice as his vision and hearing soon cleared. 

“Come on, can't lose you now. This is just a panic attack. You're better than this,” This James was saying to him matter-of-factly. “Just breathe with me and we’ll get through it. I used to have them all the time.”

_This isn’t right._

His James never had any panic attacks.

“What?”

This James grimaced, suddenly ashamed of himself. He turned away, but Steve could feel James’ hold on his arm tighten. 

“James,” he said, stern.

James shuffled in his seat, hand coming back to his neck.

“I shouldn’t have said anything.”

They sat in silence. Steve could feel himself sweating through his armor. He tried to level his voice the best he could, "It's okay. I can handle it." 

James scoffed, grimacing slightly. In that moment, he looked just like - 

_Nat…_

“Happy was keeping us in the house so we wouldn’t see. But I knew something was up, and when I looked out the window I saw them all arriving. I saw them - Uncle Bucky and Uncle Sam,” he grinned. He turned to his father, proud. 

Steve found himself smiling too. 

But then his son’s brow furrowed in the same way Steve’s would, and he looked more like Steve then than he ever had. In fact, Steve had always believed that James took after Natasha. 

_Nat…_

Steve pushed the thought out of his head, focusing on his son. 

“They were…carrying a stretcher. There was a body on it - covered up - but I knew.” This James looked at him, eyes glistening with unshed tears. “I knew it was you.”

Steve closed his eyes, the memories coming in like waves. Leaving James and Sarah with Pepper and Happy. Him and Tony in 2012. Him and Tony - Peggy. Returning. Natasha was gone. Natasha - was - gone. Nat...HQ exploding into rubble. Thanos from an earlier time, beating at him. Thanos, beating at Thor. Him, picking up mjolnir. Him, picking up the gauntlet. Wearing it. Snapping his fingers - 

“Breathe,” James called back to him, and Steve realized he was heaving dry air again.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. 

“I’m sorry,” Steve said, looking his son dead in the eye. 

His son, the light of his life, proof of the life he had decided to live…the mantle he had long given up after his sister had been born…his sister…he had left them alone. Motherless and fatherless. 

“I was angry at you for the longest time,” James agreed, smiling wistfully. “But eventually I realized that it must have been the bravest thing you’d ever done.”

_Nat…_

“I shouldn’t have -“

“You had to,” another voice says, decisive. Feminine. Also unfamiliar. 

Steve turned to his left. A beautiful teenage girl with blond hair sat down next to him, entangling their arms and holding his hand in both of hers. She smirked at him, the features she inherited from her mother shining through and making Steve's heart swell with emotion and pride.

“You did good, daddy,” Sarah Rogers assured him. She leaned into his side, setting her chin on his shoulder. She was calm and reassuring, despite the silent tears falling down her cheeks. She began humming, a comforting tune Natasha would hum to the children when they younger and not as willing to go to sleep. 

Somewhere in the middle of this, Steve had started crying as well. He pulled Sarah closer, planting a kiss on her forehead. 

"I'm sorry, Captain," he whispered.

Sarah smiled at his nickname for her. 

“Haven’t heard that in a while,” she sniffed, looking at James pointedly. James snorted in response. The nickname had been a symbol of the life Steve had given up when he’d decided enough was enough and he had to focus on the family he had in front of him. Sarah had always been Captain, while James had been -

“Little widow, I know you want into this,” Sarah said, beckoning James forward. James rolled his eyes at his sister but inched forward. 

Sarah shifted in front of Steve so that James could lay his head on his shoulder. They sat there, the three of them, hugging and crying. Steve clung onto his children with as much ferocity as they clung onto him, none of them wanting to let go. Sarah had continued humming, and together the three of them watched the orange sun set over their orange world, strangely not taking any of the light away with it. 

When it had finally set and the water started feeling cooler, Steve spoke. “How is this even happening? Are the two of you real? Is this -” he choked "Is this all in my head?"

Sarah turned to him from her position, wiping away at dried tears. She smiled kindly, reaching forward to wipe a stray tear from Steve's cheek. “We are and we’re not.”

“We’re a representation of the stones…like a vision. Sometimes it’s of what’s to come, like us, sometimes it’s of what’s been left behind, like the past,” James adds, sniffling slightly.

“Power…Time…”

“Space…Mind…”

“Reality…”

“And soul…”

_Soul…_

“Is this…is this…did you see your mother too?”

James frowned. “We can’t say…it’s different for other people…” 

“Well, I think he deserves to know,” Sarah says giving James a cool look. 

Steve looked between both children. They were both replicas of Natasha, but it was Sarah who carried her spitfire attitude. James seemed more pragmatic, distant even. It pained Steve greatly, knowing he must have contributed to that. The younger James never had this kind of naturalistic response. He was always happy-go-lucky, if not suspicious at times, definitely a troublemaker otherwise. Steve exhaled deeply as he let the memories play out in his mind, hoping to remember as much as he could wherever it was that he was going next. 

In the present, James and Sarah were still arguing. 

"It wouldn’t make a difference any way,” James said, sounding bitter for the first time since their encounter.

“Jamie…” Sarah scolded.

James shrugged at her. _Go ahead._

Sarah took Steve's hands in her own again. “A few days later, Uncle Clint is going back to return the stones to the exact moment when they were taken,” she says. She takes a deep breath, smiling bittersweetly at him. “When he returns the Soul Stone, he gets mom back in exchange. A soul for a soul.”

Steve takes it in with relief. Still he feels his jaw tightening. _Oh, Nat, I’m sorry._

“She told us at your funeral,” James continues. “‘ _Your father was always an idiot._ ’”

“‘ _And it’s what made him the hero you know and love_ ,’” Sarah finished. 

  
x x x x

  
They’re standing now, James and Sarah next to each other across from Steve. Sarah gives him one last hug. 

“You ready, daddy?” she asks.

Steve can only nod in response. He’s trying to form the words, before it’s too late. 

James steps forward and hugs him too. "I love you, dad."

He pulled away and Steve looked at both his children. He allowed himself to take the sight of them in, to remember their faces and their smiles. The way James worried, the way Sarah beamed with pride. 

“You two have always been the life I found worth living,” he found himself saying. “I have always loved you and I always will.”

James nods, heavy with emotion. He raises his hand to his head in mock-salute. “Captain.”

Steve salutes back. 

“Captains,” he says. 

He’s smiling, and he’s never felt lighter than he has now. 

And then suddenly everything’s fading. First color, then light…

…and then it’s all black once more. 

**Author's Note:**

> Always pictured Sarah Rogers as a kind of Florence Pugh character. But she's playing Yelena so (shrug). And the hugging the three of them did was somewhat inspired by the same scene in Little Women. God, I love that movie.


End file.
